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Enlarge ImageRequest to buy this photoWayne Parry | Associated PressA boarded-up house sits in the shadow of the Tropicana Casino and Resort in Atlantic City, N.J. Three Atlantic City casinos could shut down by September.

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Yomary Blanco cleans rooms at Trump Plaza, one of three Atlantic City
casinos that could shut down by September. Her husband works the buffet at the Showboat, which is
scheduled to close on Aug. 31.

With two young daughters, a mortgage, no savings and no obvious plan B, the couple fear what the
future holds.

“I’m worried; it’s a really stressful situation right now,” she said. “A lot of my co-workers
are in shock. They can’t believe this is really happening.”

The pain of a sudden spasm of casino contraction in what was once the nation’s second-largest
gambling market will hurt not only families like Blanco’s. It also will hurt small businesses like
the seafood company in neighboring Pleasantville that sells lobsters to the casinos, the pizza shop
in the shadow of Revel and the beauty parlor where dealers and cocktail waitresses get their hair
done.

The housing market could suffer as homes are foreclosed on, or sold for less than they’re worth.
Taxes could rise and services could decline in Atlantic City, where 60 percent of the budget comes
from casino taxes; the city plans to cut $10 million from its budget in each of the next four years
to make up for lost casino money.

And New Jersey’s programs for senior citizens and the disabled, which provide bus rides to and
from the supermarket or doctor’s office and help with the cost of prescription drugs, already have
been cut back as casino tax collections plunge, and could shrink yet again.

In January, the Atlantic Club closed, taken down by two rivals in a bankruptcy court auction,
stripped for parts and shuttered. The Showboat will close on Aug. 31 and Trump Plaza on Sept. 16,
barring some last-minute deal to save one or both of them. Revel, which was hailed as a potential
savior of Atlantic City when it opened a little over two years ago, says it will close if a buyer
does not emerge from a bankruptcy auction in August.

That would put nearly 8,000 workers — about a quarter of the city’s casino workforce — on the
street.

The casino industry has had a mixed legacy — but it has indisputably made a huge difference in
the city’s coffers and in job opportunities, employing more than 45,000 people at the industry’s
peak.

Bob McDevitt, president of Local 54 of the Unite-HERE union, plans to seek potential buyers for
the three casinos and pledges “flexibility and cooperation” in contract talks. He also is rallying
political and public support against the closings, vowing, “We are not taking this lying down.”

Blanco, who has cleaned rooms at Trump Plaza for 18 years, is preparing for the possibility of
her job and that of her husband disappearing within weeks. First to go will be the Catholic school
her 7-year-old daughter now attends.

“I don’t know how I’m going to explain that to her,” Blanco said.

Donald Moliver, dean of the Leon Hess Business School at Monmouth University in West Long
Branch, N.J., said the casino closings will have a ripple effect on the local and regional economy
as less income is injected into it. He predicted that mortgage delinquencies will rise and
government tax collections will fall.

Since 2006, right before the first Pennsylvania casino opened, the amount of taxes New Jersey
has collected from casinos at an 8 percent rate has fallen from $413 million to $207 million this
year.

Greg Goff’s Casino Lobster company sells to the gambling halls; this month, he started
soliciting out-of-state restaurants to make up for lost business.

“You have three fewer casinos, that’s 30 percent less, and it’s 30 percent off of something that
was already down,” he said. “This ain’t the good ol’ days.”